Roughly 10km long in length, the elevated tollway over Hosur Road between Bengaluru’s busy Silk Board Junction and Electronic City Phase 1 was built to reduce travel time to 15 minutes. Although in reality, the average time it would take to cross the Electronic City flyover in Bengaluru was 40 minutes, today, however, that same stretch is likely to take you at least an hour. In peak hours, though, it is a commuter’s nightmare with motorists complaining of being in bumper-to-bumper traffic for sometimes two hours.
Thanks to “regular maintenance work”, the Electronic City flyover has been partly cordoned off since mid December. As a result, there have been increased traffic congestion on the main highway which was earlier used by heavy vehicles including BMTC and long-distance buses.
The work which was started on mid December by Bangalore Elevated Tollway Private Limited (BETPL) had not initially impacted the regular users much due to Christmas and year ender holidays. According to the authorities, the work will go on till March in patches of 1-2 km on either side of the flyover at a time. BETPL officials could not be reached for a comment on when the repair work will be finished.
A traffic police official attached to Electronic City Police Station said, “The traffic movement has been hit as work is going on the bearings of the bridge, it will take a minimum of another 10 days for the work to be finished, till then this problem will persist.”
Roopal Chaturvedi, a professional who uses the flyover for commuting for work, said, “I take the flyover daily while travelling from my house in Electronic City towards my office near Forum Mall. Currently, the divider almost in the middle of the road has been shifted and it is basically one lane for incoming and outgoing traffic for a stretch of two kilometres. Even after this, the rash driving of two wheelers causes more inconvenience.”
“We were never informed before about this and now we are told that it will go for another one and a half months. Earlier to reach office on time, I would take 30-40 minutes, now the same route takes about an hour. If I need to reach office on time, I could have left home around 8:30am but now I have to leave as early as 7:15am to avoid the traffic. The same is the case for the traffic on the other direction, I see a lot of congestion,” she added.
Another daily commuter, Rimo Bose, who travels in the opposite direction also complained of the increased travel time. She also pointed out that there is lack of adequate safety measures in places where the ad-hoc dividers are placed.
“It is risky the way they have divided the sides. When I go to work at around 7am, thankfully there are no traffic jams but the fog reduces visibility and it is not easy to spot bikes coming from the other side. The sooner they fix it, the better it is,” she said.
“While going home, earlier I would take 20-30 minutes, now it takes more than an hour to cover the same distance,” she added.
